—The sun was in the middle of the sky, which let every elementary schooler know that their day was going to get brighter, literally and figuratively. This was the time the kids would be let out for their daily dose of the recess drug.
Their respective teachers would let them out of the school doors and into the park, like a shepherd letting loose a flock of sheep into their field. It was an escape, usually before or after lunch. The weather today and in this season was perfect for fun activities, such as tag, freeze tag, other renditions of tag, or just to play on the playground equipment. For all of the kids, it was a moment of school they truly found fun in.
There was nothing to worry about, no schoolwork needed to be focused on while outside playing with friends. The children could play soccer or use the swingset. They could fantasize to their heart's content without the need to think ahead until the school bell issued them all to come back inside.
The escape from reality, as some call it, was necessary for the students to keep up their morale. It was a plain and straightforward boost they needed to pay attention in their seats for the rest of their day. It was a great time.
But not for two students in particular.
In this elementary recess period, like most in school systems, a group of kids would sometimes go around and harass their classmates.
"Where's your lunch box, loser!?" A bully demands.
It was a toxic environment half of the time, with these bullies going around and picking on people smaller than them. The teachers were not permitted to step in since they couldn't lay a finger on the children. It was a harsh reality.
"And you! Give it up!" Another bully says.
Today's two kids who were given the bottom of the barrel had not yet eaten lunch, bringing their lunchboxes outside to eat together as friends. They had just met and wanted to know each other better.
"N-no! You already ate your food!!" A young Josh says back.
"Y-yeah! I'm gonna tell on you!" A young Isabelle responds as well.
"Awe, look at the little crybabies! No teacher's going to help you out once we beat the bravery out of ya!" A larger kid says, seemingly the head honcho of the group of bullies.
The larger kid takes a swing at Josh, who is defenseless, and takes the punch straight in the jaw. It was the first time Josh felt pain like this before, and he immediately started bawling. Not wanting to get any attention, the larger bully covers Josh's mouth while pinning him down with his bodyweight alone.
"Hey, leave him alone!-" Isabelle yells but is also silenced by the larger kid's friends, thrown in Josh's direction.
"Go on then! Help out your buddy!" A bully says.
Isabelle was right next to the larger bully, who gets off of Josh and stands up straight to face her menacingly. She was frightened by his size alone, being almost twice as tall as her. She falls over in fear right next to Josh, who is catching back his breath from being pinned down.
"What are you two gonna do?" The larger bully says, taking a step back from them to crack his knuckles, "If you don't give up your lunches, I'm gonna make you wish you weren't born!"
Isabelle and Josh were utterly terrified, clinging onto their lunch boxes as the other bullies rushed to the larger one's side. It looks like things are about to get really painful, so the two friends close their eyes in anticipation of what's to come.
"Hey! Pick on someone your own size!" A voice calls out nearby.
Josh and Isabelle open their eyes at the sound of someone challenging the larger bully. In front of them stood a kid their age, who was about the same size as them. He was holding a large stick like it was a weapon, pointing it at the bullies. He had spiky brown hair.
"Huh? Just who do you think you're talking to?" One of the bullies ask.
"A bunch of meanies!" The kid says, "*I'm* about to make you wish you were never *ever* born!"
The bullies laughed at the kid's guts, and his speech was also amusing to them. He was the same, if not smaller than Josh and Isabelle, so he could practically do nothing to them. His stick also looked flimsy in his tiny hands. Josh notices an extra lunchbox on the ground, behind the kid with the stick. He must've brought his out to eat during recess as well.
"Oh yeah?! Then prove it!" the larger bully says, seeing the kid start to tremble, "Or are you chicken?"
The kid armed with the stick starts to back up slightly as the larger bully ridicules him. It seemed like a losing battle.
"Tell you what? If you move out of the way, I'll only take their lunches! Then you can be free from the beatdown and still get to eat!" The larger bully says.
'But I'm totally gonna take his lunch even if he does move!' The bully thinks, scoffing to himself.
The kid with the stick looks like he's about to back down, lowering his stick slightly as the bully offers up the deal. Josh and Isabelle try to make a run for it, turning away from the bullies before getting back up.
*SNAP!*
Before getting a chance to get up, Josh and Isabelle both look behind them towards the origin of the loud sound. The stick that the kid from before was holding had snapped in half, and the larger bully was lying down on the floor, seemingly unconscious. Before they even had time to process what happened, the kid with the spiky brown hair started to project to the other bullies.
"Who wants some?!" He yells, waving his half-broken stick around at them like he was going to curse them.
In about five seconds, the other bullies ran off to another corner of the playground, extremely scared by the kid's menace that was similar to the larger bully. The kid drops whatever section of the stick he had that was still intact onto the ground and picks up his lunchbox as if nothing happened. Josh and Isabelle watch as he turns around to face them.
"Hey, is your face ok?" The boy asks Josh.
"H-huh?" Josh says, realizing he was talking about that punch from earlier, "O-h!! Yeah, it just stings a little, is all..."
The boy with spiky brown hair walks over and reaches out both of his hands for Josh and Isabelle to get them back off the ground. They quickly grabbed hold of his hands and pulled themselves back up.
"T-thank you..." Isabelle says nervously, shyly extending out her lunchbox to the boy, "Here, you can have my lunch."
"S-same here," Josh says, also offering up his lunchbox to the boy.
The kid looks at both of the lunchboxes with wide eyes and a shocked expression. Then, he smiles and lifts his own lunchbox to them.
"How about we share?" The kid says, "My mom packed me some chips I hate!"
The students laugh and sit down in a secluded area of the playground, exchanging various cheap snacks and homemade sandwiches with each other. After a couple of minutes of eating, Josh turns to the boy who had just stopped his bullies.
"Oh!! I never introduced myself!" Josh starts, offering a fist bump, "My name's Josh!"
"Me neither!" Isabelle says, also offering a fist bump with the boy, "I'm Isabelle! Thanks for earlier!"
The boy simply stares at both of them, then proceeds to fist bump both of them individually.
"You're the first friends I've made in this new school!" The boy says.
"My name's Jayson!"
—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-
Jay stood in front of Blaze and Sandra still, focusing on not reaching his threshold. He could still see Tide charging up Geyser but reminisced about when he first met Josh and Isabelle. It felt strangely familiar to the predicament he was in now.
"*Well*? Are you moving or not?!" Tide shouts at Jay.
Jay took a deep breath in and exhaled shortly after. He was getting all kinds of flashbacks right now, remembering all of his training up to this point and the beginning of the tryouts. Jay has gotten this far with the help of his friends, but it was time to make a stand for himself. Up to this point, he's been relying on others when he should depend on himself. The words Helmet constantly reminds him of start to ring in his ears.
"Visualize and execute," Jay whispers to himself.
He looks up and matches Tide's gaze, lifting his sword—which has been dangling in his weakened grasp at his side—almost to challenge him.
"I have two things to say," Jay starts to say.
Blaze and Sandra watch in complete awe as Jay stands heroically in front of them, lifting his sword above his head and grabbing its grip with his left hand.
"Even though I don't have Aspect, or seem to not be able to control it all just yet..." Jay announces, "That doesn't mean I can't compete at all!—"
"—And secondly, I'm not moving!"
Jay's intent of staying put entirely shakes Tide. Although none of the prospects in the playing field could hear it, Stan was going ecstatic on the commentary.
'Well, he must've realized I would kill him regardless, but at least he's accepting defeat now.' Tide thinks to himself.
Jay stands his ground with his broken blade over his head. Just like in elementary school before, his enemy would undoubtedly double-cross him after the fact. Jay would need to prove to Tide that he wasn't going to give in that easily.
"Last chance!" Tide shouts, "You're just going to die with them!"
"...I'd prefer that anyway," Jay says, keeping a focus on Tide.
The ball of water convulsing above Tide's hand starts to shake rapidly, reducing and improving its pressurization at a randomly increasing rate. It starts to become too violent, and Tide lifts his right hand behind him as if to shoot the ball of water straight at Jay.
"Well then, just know...!" Tide announces.
"That this is going to *HURT*!!!"
Almost like it broke the sound barrier, A large pillar of water shoots straight at Jay and the other prospects at an alarming rate. The large torrent of water rushed to him like a bullet to its target.
Jay closes his eyes in preparation as the large body of water reaches his position, seemingly bracing himself for the impact. Blaze and Sandra look up to see him standing still in front of the water's wake.
'Visualize...' Jay thinks.
In an instant, Jay can sense the world around him in a completely new perspective. Time slows for a moment as he collects all of the focus he has left inside of him, using it all in this instance.
'Execute...'
A spartan phrase Helmet kept on telling him. Jay previously thought it was to help him reach success, visualize it in front of him, and execute a plan to achieve it. This phrase—in the heat of the moment—gained a completely different meaning to Jay.
'Visualize!—' Jay screams in his head.
He pictures his mother in her bed, the calendar next to it with the Xs on each Sunday. The room's white noise overcrowding his thought. He even pictures his PTSD episode landscape, with the rain and the monochrome road. The strange figure, who was seemingly his mother, reaching out their hand to him.
As he gathers up every pent-up emotion he has, The world around him shifts while he still keeps his eyes closed. Almost like an afterimage, Jay sees the world around him in a different light without looking at it directly. No longer did it look hyper-realistic, but it looked like a bunch of developer boxes simulating the world around him. Each air molecule looked like a cube, even the water rushing towards him. Once more, on top of this, a strange white line was in the middle of the water's path, which was ahead of the course Geyser was taking. It showed Jay where it was going to end up.
Then it hit him. The phrase "visualize and execute" Wasn't directed at success. It was a blueprint for a power Jay had heard of before, which he was using at this moment to see this strange environment before him.
It was a blueprint to use «Preloading».
'*EXECUTE*!!!" Jay screams in his head, watching the strange white line ahead of Geyser get right next to his face.
Jay takes a single step forward and drives his broken sword downwards, bending his knees to secure as much power in his swing. Before when he stuck his sword into the water, it was trapped because of the pressure, and Jay hadn't known its weak spot.
Jay slices Geyser in half before it reaches him.
Two arcs of concentrated water shoot out to his left and his right.
Along with Sandra and Blaze, he didn't lose a digit of HP.